The Masters House

I bought the water seal stain to do the back porch railing this weekend but I did not get a chance to do it. I came home yesterday to find that my father-in-law had done it for me – Thanks!

I have to say that it looks really awesome!

The color is more then I expected and it just really gives the porch a finished look. The best part is that it matches the fence.

Now this makes me want to do the expansion of the deck!

Click here to see more picture – porch pics.

Well the weather is turning nice here in Central Texas and so the kids are wanting to be outside more and more. They are still small so letting them go play in the backyard by themselves is out of the question right now. As you can imagine they have far more energy then we do so hanging out with them outside can be a bit much.

I had thrown around the idea of adding railing around our back porch last year and my wife had thought that it was a good idea.

I mention it again a few weeks back and my wife encouraged me to get it done for the kids – so I did this past weekend.

The whole project cost right around $200 for the materials. and took me about 10 hours over 3 days to complete. One of the most time consuming tasks was making the banisters. I could have easily bought them for around $1.50 a piece but ended up making them myself for around $0.40 each.

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My wife is the luck one that gets to do our taxes this year so all I have to do is compile the lists of information.

One of the lists that I need to compile was how much we spent on home improvement this past year. After making the list it is surprising to see that putting water seal on the fence cost almost exactly the same amount as turning our dining room into a bedroom.

All-in-all we did some pretty cool stuff and did not even break $1000 which is really nice.

Below is the list so you can have an idea how much it costs to do various projects: Read the rest of this entry »

In the summer our electricity bill would hover right around the $300 area. This is a pretty big pill to swallow when you are used to the $100 electric bills of a small apartment.

Giving fluorescent a try

As I started to install ceiling fans so when would not need to run the air conditioning as much I needed more light bulbs. More light bulbs means more $$$$ every month with them burning so I decided to buy florescent bulbs instead. The reason for this was that the average 50 watt bulb was replaced with a 14 watt equivalent that was actually brighter. This ended up equaling that I need less light bulbs.

We saw the difference in our bill between the new light bulbs and not using the air conditioner as much. Our bill dropped to $150 – nice.

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Well it happened about 2 weeks ago but I finally crawled up into the attic to finish the electrical for the new room/hallway. It wasn’t completely uneventful as I sliced my finger pretty good and the lights didn’t work the first time flipped the switch. I learned valuable lesson is both incidents.

In the first incident I was in the attic getting ready to slice together two wires in a junction box and was cutting the sheathing off on of the wires. I was holding the wires with me left hand and cutting with my right hand.

When I was almost at the end of the cut the knife slipped and sliced across my pink on my left hand. It started bleeding right away. I quickly yet calmly made my way out of the attic while sucking on my finger. Read the rest of this entry »

So this weekend we did the final sanding, texture, and painting of the new wall that has turned our former formal dinning room to a 5th bedroom. It is now at a state that my brother and law has moved into it.

Things that still need to be done are:

• Hook up electrical and cable outlets
• Paint shelving area
• Install and paint base boards and trim around the door.
• Texture and paint the wall around the door on the kitchen side

All-in-all the project came out better the I would have hoped. I owe a big thanks to my wife, her dad, and her brother as I would not have been able to get it to this pint without them.

Pictures will be coming shortly!

Technorati: Home Improvement, DIY, Construction

Today I was checking whats out on the web. I like to shop on the web or at least see whats new out there. In doing so I found online coupons for Walmart. So I went ahead and checked them out. I wanted to see what they had online.

Since Dan and I decided to get Genesis a Toddler bed instead. Mikey gets to keep his toddler bed for a bit longer. We were planning to buy him a race car bed but instead we will work with what he is got. But his Race Car Theme is still on. I found this cool toddler bed set, race car theme for only $34.78 at the online Walmart store. I went to my online coupons website and clicked on Walmart.

Anyways check out what I found.

I think it looks wonderful. I also was able to get 4 checker flags from the Disney Store to place on the walls like the ones you see in the picture.

I am still not done with Genesis room Completely but will be done soon and I can’t wait to start on Mikey’s room. Well, to be honest, Dan is the one that will be working on Mikey’s room but I get to help him. I am so exited!

Technorati : Home Decor, Race Car Theme, Toddler Beds

Well on my day off for Columbus Day Elsy took the kids out for the day so I could continue on turning the formal dining room into my youngest sons.

I have to say that it is more scary to rip the walls apart in your BRAND NEW HOME as opposed to one that is 40+ years old. Never the less we rip out the drywall in the arch way and actually cut the carpet to do the framing. I thought about taking the before pictures but I had so much work to do that messing around with the camera was not an option. I should have pictures of the progress sometime soon.

Anyway we got up the full sized wall and the 4 foot wall that will create the shelf (the wall is being built double thick). We even got up 95% of the drywall on one side.

This weekend will see me crawling into the attic to slice into the electrical and the cable to run those to the new wall. Hopefully we will be able to finish the drywall and start mudding also.

Pics to come soon!

Technorati: Home Improvement, DIY, Construction, Building a Wall, Drywall, Electrical

Well construction has begun on converting our unused formal dining room into a bedroom for our youngest son. This project is composed of installing a door in the entry way between the kitchen and the room and sealing off the entrance to the room from the entry way hall way. This wall is about 11 feet wide.

I have already installed the door but still need to do the drywall on the sides and above it. I am planning on doing the wall in the coming weeks and am accumulating the tools and materials that I need for it. This includes my new half price 1/2″ hammer drill. Cool…

Pics to come soon.

Technorati: Home Improvement, Construction, DIY, Home Remodeling

This is what I decided to do to her room, add more color: More flowers and more green. I think that it looks better then it did better without having to paint over the wall and without starting from scratch. I like the colors and the green. This is what was missing, more color.

I hope Genesis likes it too.

Technorati : Child Room Decor, Flower Theme, Free Hand Painting